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Alteryx Interview Questions and Answers

What is Alteryx?

Alteryx is an American computer software company based in Irvine, California, with a development center in Broomfield, Colorado. The company’s products are used for data blending and advanced data analytics. Alteryx has a stated goal of enabling advanced analytics to be performed by non-specialists.

What Is An Analytic Application?

Pre-packaged data and analytic integration published to the Alteryx Analytics Gallery by Data Artisans to answer specific strategic analytics questions.

What Is The Analytics Gallery?

The Analytics Gallery is a publicly hosted web service where applications can be published, securely shared, and run in the cloud.

What Is A Viewer?

A Viewer is a free user of the Analytics Gallery. A Viewer can run all applications published in the Public Gallery.

Why would an organization choose Alteryx opposed to other open or semi-open source applications?

There are many reasons why a company or user would choose to use Alteryx instead of other open or semi-opened applications. Reputation and ratings can have a large impact on what tool to use and Alteryx has the following acknowledgements in the Gardner Magic Quadrants:

Top quartile for complexity of analysis

Top quartile for overall ease of use

Top quartile for customer experience and operations

Rated highest for product quality

Top quartile for top support

In addition to the recognition that Alteryx has received from Gardner’s Magic Quadrants, Alteryx has an advantage with offering a one in all solution and also partners with other vendors to strengthen the capability of the solutions.

What Is A Member?

A Member is a user who can run applications that are shared privately through Collections. A Membership is granted by a Data Artisan. A Member also shares the privileges of a Viewer to run all applications published in the Public Gallery.

What Is A Data Artisan?

A Data Artisan is a user who creates analytic applications using the Alteryx Designer Desktop and then shares them publicly and/or privately in the Analytics Gallery. A Data Artisan also shares the privileges of a Member.

What Is Required To Run Applications In The Public Gallery?

Anyone can sign up and become a Viewer, with the ability to run all applications in the Public Gallery, for free. As soon as you confirm your email, you will have access to the Public Gallery.

What Is Required To Run An Application In A Private Collection?

You must be a Member to run applications shared in private Collections. Memberships are granted by Data Artisans, who create and share applications.

Why did Alteryx decide to integrate R for predictive analytics over other programming?

Integration of R allows Alteryx to utilize a third party solution that many users may already have had exposure too as well as enhance the analytical capabilities by including predictive modeling and spatial analytics. The predictive analytics become part of the entire workflow in Alteryx which results in a quicker turnaround in getting the end results.

What Is Required To Build Applications?

Applications are built with Alteryx Designer Desktop. Download the Designer Desktop Free Trial.

What Is Required To Publish Applications In The Analytics Gallery?

Applications are published from the Alteryx Designer Desktop into a private Studio.

A Studio is automatically created for license holders of the Designer Desktop.

Trial users of the Designer Desktop can set up a Studio with a 30-Day Studio Free Trial

A user with the Designer Desktop and a private Studio is known as a Data Artisan.

How Do I Run An Application?

Click on the title of an application to view application details and click the Run button; or simply click the icon.

Configure the application to suit your needs. Depending upon the application, you might be prompted to enter an address for geocoding, to input a customer file for demographic analysis, or to select data from a range of choices that apply to your business.

Click the Run button at the bottom of the application.

What Are The Results Of Running An Application?

Applications can be authored to create a variety of different reports and data outputs. When the application processing finishes, the results will appear in the same window as the questions you answered before running the application.

Reports can be previewed after an application has completed by clicking on the Preview link.

Additionally, results for applications that have been run can be found in the application detail view, and the “App Results” tab on the left of the screen.

What Kinds Of Tabular And Spatial Data Output Can An Application Create?

I Ran An Application But I Closed The Window Before It Finished Running. How Can I View The Results?

Application results are stored with your account and can be accessed at any time. As long as you are signed in, the results of any applications that have finished running can be found in two places:

Under the application details page for an application.

Under “App Results” (visible on the left side of the screen when you are signed in).

How Can I View More Details About An Application?

Click on the name of an application to view details, such as the upload date, description, author, studio, copyright, and number of times run. The application details page also includes buttons enabling you to Run, Share, and (if enabled) Download the application.

What Browsers Are Supported By The Analytics Gallery?

Internet Explorer (IE8 or higher)

Firefox

Google Chrome

Safari

How Can I Find The Applications I Need?

Each section of the Analytics Gallery features a context-sensitive Search field you can use to find applications.

Searching in the Public Gallery returns applications in the Public Gallery.

Searching in the Studio tab returns applications in your Studio.

Searching in a Collection returns applications in the Collection.

Additionally, a Collection created by you will offer a second search window, which allows you to find applications in your Studio and add them to your Collection.

What Is A Studio?

A Studio contains all of the applications published by the Data Artisans within an organization.

Who Has Access To The Applications Published In A Studio?

All of the Data Artisans within an organization, and only those Data Artisans, can view and run any applications in their Studio.

How Can I Rename My Studio?

Click on your User Name to go to your Settings.

Select the Studio Tab.

Enter a new name in the Studio Name field.

Click the save button.

How Can An Application Be Shared?

When an application is published in a Studio, all Data Artisans belonging to that Studio can access it.
An application in a Studio can also be shared to the Public Gallery, where anyone can access it.
An application in a Studio can also be shared in a Collection. Any users added to the Collection can access it.

Are Chained Applications Supported In The Analytics Gallery?

At present, chained applications are not supported.

What Are My Options If I Want To Publish An Application And Data That Exeed 100mb?

Please use the Cloud Connector tools within the Designer Desktop to host your data on the cloud.

Are There Limits To The File Size Of Applications And/or Data Published In The Analytics Gallery?

Yes, applications and data are limited to 100MB.

What Tool Configurations Or Question Types Cannot Be Used In The Analytics Gallery?

Input and output files referenced by Tools must be in the same directory as the application.

The application Question type “Folder Browse” cannot be used in applications published to the web.

In the application Question type “File Browse,” the “Save As Dialog” configuration cannot be checked.

Your application will be reviewed and an exemption may be made to allow it to be run.

What Capabilities In The Designer Desktop Cannot Be Used In The Analytics Gallery?

The following tools are prohibited in applications published in the Analytics Gallery.

Run Command tool

Run Command event

R tool (Macros included in the Designer Desktop that use the R tool are permitted.)

Email tool

Send Email event

Download tool

Can I Publish Applications Using Private Data?

Yes, applications using private data can be published in your private Studio, and can be shared in Collections. They cannot be shared in the Public Gallery.

What Is ``private Data?``

A license of the Alteryx Designer Desktop may include a variety of private data sets, including demographic data, psychographic data, business list and consumer list.

How Can I Share An Application Through Email Or Social Media?

(Public Gallery applications only) Click on the name of an application to view the application details page. Click the Sharing button to share via email, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

How Can I Remove An Application From The Public Gallery?

Click on the name of an application to view the application details page. Click the Sharing button and choose “Remove from Public Gallery.”

How Can I Share An Application In The Public Gallery?

Click on the name of an application to view the application details page. Click the Sharing button and choose “Place in Public Gallery.”

I Published An Application And Shared It In A Collection (or In The Public Gallery). Since Then, I Have Made Changes To The Application In The Designer Desktop. Can I Update It?

First, select the original version and delete it. Next, re-publish the application and add it to your Collection (or to the Public Gallery)

Can I Allow Users Within My Collection To Share It With Others?

Each Collection includes a checkbox on the upper right that states “Other users may share this collection.” When this box is checked, anyone in the Collection will have the ability to add other users to the Collection.

The Data Artisan who created the Collection will see the names of any additional users who are added to the Collection, and can remove them.

When I Add A New Application To A Collection, Are The Users In That Collection Notified?

Yes.

Is There A Limit To The Number Of Applications Or Users I Can Add To A Collection?

No.

Could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background?

I’m George Mathew, President and COO of Alteryx. I’m responsible for Products, Marketing, and Strategy at Alteryx. My background has been in BI and Analytics for a good part of a decade now. Previously I was the Group VP and GM for SAP Business Objects BI. I tend to be very focused on data analytics especially as they impact business users. Using technology products to solve massive business problems is what I live for.

Can you tell us about your experience with Alteryx? Can you present the company and speak about its present and future challenges?

Alteryx has been a rocket ship of growth these past few years. Primarily, this is driven by the idea that more business users should have better tools to drive self-reliant analytic work.This has been the generational shift of our times in enterprise software that we’ve been gaining tremendous tailwind from. Alteryx added 400 new subscribing customers and 10s of thousands of new users this past year. Naturally, this kind of explosive growth has it’s own intrinsic challenges. Frankly, I’m delighted in how well Alteryx is serving our core data analysts customers in their ongoing analytic success. So the associated growth challenges are more than welcome in comparison to being unloved or worse, irrelevant software in this amazing market! Today, we have more than 800 customers worldwide relying on Alteryx daily, and our focus is to ensure we continue to empower line-of-business analysts, enabling them to discover and share ever-greater business critical insights.

What did you bring to the #drivenbydata Summit?

My focus at #DrivenByData was to cover the idea that Analytics is for the People. More empowerment. Better context. Great data-driven decision-making should be democratized to everyone.

In your opinion what are the most important challenges and opportunities presented by Big Data and the Internet of Things concerning business?

Business users are still underpowered in terms of their direct ability to take advantage of data in their decision-making processes. This is both the most important challenge and the biggest opportunity that product and service provider in the Big Data, Analytic, IoT arena. At the same time, security concerns around data spillage are preventing organizations from really building a ‘culture of data’ from within.

What is / are the biggest misconception(s) about big data in your view?

The biggest misconception about big data is the notion of big. All data in various sizes and forms matters. The importance of data is not just the size of data but what insights you can derive from it.

There’s a difference between data science and data intelligence – how do you see this?

I think data science, data analytics, and business intelligence are more of a continuum of work vs. separate, discreet tasks.

Big data is causing enterprises to find new ways to leverage information sources to drive growth. What are your suggestions?

Focus on analytic decision-making. Keep a ‘diary’ of what decisions you made with data (big, small, and everything in between). The most important thing about data is how you use it for a possible analytic decision.

How can you use big data analytics or large and complex datasets to predict future customer behaviors, trends and outcomes?

The blending of internal, external, 3rd party, cloud sources help deliver far richer tapestry for understanding consumer behavior, social media sentiment, and outcome modeling. We are really focused on delivering these capabilities to business users, in particular, the data analysts that have been vastly underserved in their analytical needs.

With the amount of data increasing exponentially how can businesses sustain an information and analytics capability?

Reflecting the wider priorities of the business landscape overall, agility and efficiency are critical to working and coping with the surging volumes of data that organisations now analyse. This means that speed is key. In fact, according to Alteryx research, 72% of business and analytics leaders aren’t satisfied with how long it takes to get the insights they need from data. Despite strides forward, it still takes too long to process and analyse. According to 90% of these leaders, the ability to bring together and blend data from various sources is the main cause. With analysts and decision makers drawing on information in data centres, cloud apps, and even Excel spreadsheets on their desktops, the ability to blend these sources is vital, and this is very time consuming for many businesses. This is where Alteryx delivers immediate value to its customers, through its intuitive drag-and-drop, code-free interface. Data blending no longer needs to take days or weeks, but minutes or hours instead.

What are some of the key features or capabilities that Alteryx offers?

Alteryx Designer is the main tool that Alteryx offers. The Alteryx Designer allows a user to create repeatable workflows from an easy to learn interface with the capability of connecting to multiple platforms, blend, cleanse, and produce analytics results. The Alteryx Designer includes the following tools:

>> Input/Output – Access data from locations such as on a local desktop, in a relational database, in the cloud, or third-party systems and deliver that data to a wide variety of formats and sources.>> Preparation – Ease the process of getting data ready for analysis or downstream processes with a set of drag and drop tools that eliminate the need for SQL coding and complex formulas.>> Join – Working with multiple sources of data doesn’t need to be difficult. Blend multiple data sources regardless of the data structure and formats through a number of tools.>> Predictive – Get access to over 30 prepackaged tools of the most widely used procedures for predictive analytics, grouping, and forecasting to help analyst throughout the predictive analytics process.>> Spatial – Geospatial data can offer a wealth of information, take advantage of location based data to make more informed decisions and understand things like trade areas, drive-time analysis, and more.>> Investigation – Before a process or analysis takes place, analysts need to understand the details of the data before they can dive into to deeper analysis.>> Parse & Transform – Data comes in all shapes and formats and many times it needs to be restructured and re-shaped in order for the data to be analyzed- parsing and transformation tools help users change the data to the format they need for further analysis.

Alteryx Server enhances the use of the Alteryx Designer because it allows you to share your results between users, teams or departments. The processing of the workflows occurs on the server instead of the individual’s workstation.
Alteryx Analytics Gallery gives the organization the opportunity to process the workflows in the cloud. This allows an organization to process large datasets (Big Data) in a centralized and single environment.

How can you change a word or character or remove it?

How Can I Find Users To Add To A Collection?

Select the Collection and use the Search Users field on the right. Any registered users of the Analytics Gallery that match your search terms will be returned.

Additionally, you can add someone who has not registered with the Alteryx Analytics Gallery by entering a valid email address. An invitation will be sent.

What Types Of Users Can Run Private Applications In A Collection?

If an application in a Collection has not been shared in the Public Gallery, Viewers (who have been invited to join the Collection) can view the application, but cannot run it. Only Data Artisans and Members can run the application.

Can A Viewer Who Is Added To A Collection Run The Applications In The Collection?

Only those applications in the Collection that have also been shared in the Public Gallery by the Data Artisan can be run by the Viewer

What Types Of Users Can Be Added To A Collection?

Data Artisans, Members, and Viewers can all be added to a Collection. You can even enter the email address of someone who has not yet visited the Analytics Gallery.

My Organization Has More Than One Data Artisan. Who Controls The Distribution Of Memberships?

At present, all Data Artisans have equal access to Membership distribution under Studio Settings.

I Am A Data Artisan Or Member. I Want To Run An Application Shared With Me From A Different Organization. Do I Need A Membership From That Organization?

No. A single Analytics Gallery Membership entitles you to run private applications shared from any Collection.

As A Data Artisan, Do I Also Need A Membership?

No, Data Artisans are also Members.

Can An Application Be Added To More Than One Collection?

Yes.

What Applications Can Be Added To A Collection?

Only applications published in the Data Artisan’s Studio may be added to a Collection. Applications in the Data Artisan’s Studio may also (at their discretion) be shared in the Public Gallery. However, applications in the Public Gallery that were published from other Studios cannot be added to a Collection.

As A Data Artisan, How Can I Tell How Many Memberships I Have To Distribute?

Click on your User Name to go to your Settings. Select the Studio Tab. Find “Memberships available to distribute” in the Members section

As A Data Artisan, How Do I Grant A Membership To Someone?

Click on your User Name to go to your Settings.
Select the Studio Tab.
In the Members section, enter an Email address or User Name.

As A Data Arti60. As A Data Artisan, How Can I Share An Application Privately With Someone?san, How Can I Share An Application Privately With Someone?

Publish an application from the Designer Desktop to your private Studio.
Add the application to a Collection.
Add the User to the Collection. In order to run the application, the user must be a Member.

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